They get yelled at, often times brawled and threatened as they muscle their way to protect with all their might the ballots that hold the “future”. They are the frontiers we see during national and local elections and just recently, we crossed paths with them again when we had Monday’s Barangay and SK elections.

And who are they? They are not mere Board of Election Tellers, above anything else they are teachers. Teachers of our children, your grandchildren... They are teachers who serve during elections… teachers who assist and serve us -- the voters. They probably would have not been there if it were not their mandate.. They are not supposed to be the “shock absorber” of any election “shortcomings” but often times, they are.

One instance was when a certain BET was rebuked at by a handful of voters due to lack of election paraphernalia. Obviously it was not the BET’s fault, but because she is in the frontline, she got all the blame. Good thing the issue was immediately resolved as Comelec central office issued a resolution allowing the use of an improvised material such as bond paper, cartolina, or manila paper to replace the lacking election material.

“We would like to apologize to the teachers who served in the Barangay and SK elections for the inconvenience in their part because of the problem as far as distribution of election paraphernalia is concerned,” said District 1 Election Officer Atty. Alkadam Sakandal.

Sakandl also took the opportunity of expressing his appreciation to the teachers for painstakingly serving in the elections “maskin baho lang diila compensation (even if they get low compensation)," Sakandal stressed.

Meanwhile, the election officer also extended his apology to voters in some barangays for failing to dispatch at an earlier time the "voters' information sheet". This he said in reaction to some voters who got annoyed during the Oct. 25 polls as it took them (voters) time to locate their assigned precincts due to delayed "presentation" of the said information sheet. -- PIA ZC